Monster Man Cometh

Greetings Children of the Night. At the urging of a reader, I am going to replace my usual weekly Face Off post with a little run down of this week's episode of Monster Man.

Last night was episode two of Monster Man and I...am...hooked! The personalities are great and nothing beats good old fashioned, hand crafted monsters. Another upside of this show, is it highlights all kinds of fun indie films I'm now going to have to try and track down and see.

Each episode seems to focus on two different films and two different projects for Cleve Hall, his daughter Constance, and the rest of the team at SOTA FX. This week's projects were a practical werewolf for Hallow Pointe, directed by Thomas J. Churchill and Princess Polly for Forbidden Zone 2.

Cleve and Constance Hall (image source)

“Hallow Pointe” is a chilling story about love, life and what lengths you go through to try and save someone; all told within the classic horror staple, a creature feature.  The filmmakers’ vision for the film is to bring back the feel of old school 80's horror (ie: “The Howling,” “American Werewolf in London”) giving fans something movies today are lacking – great creature development with hard core visual FX. - PRLOG

Constance's Sketch (image source)

 It's incredible the lengths this team goes to, to hand create these monsters; to make them seem real. I love the fact that some movies are moving back to practical effects and away from CGI. Constance did the sketch and they showed the actual process of moving from a ho-hum sketch to something spectacular. The team even took a field trip to an attack dog school (complete with Cleve in a bite suit) so they could all actually see the mechanics of a dog bite in action.

Muscle Suit covered in fur (image source)

For a peek at the teaser trailer, click here. This teaser trailer is what we got to watch being filmed on Monster Man.The landing site for Hallow Pointe isn't much yet, but you can find it here.

Final werewolf (image source)

The second film is something that I'm going to be excited to see. In 1982 Richard "Rick" Elfman, brother to Danny Elfman, made a cult classic film called Forbidden Zone. For those of you who haven't seen it, for shame! *wags finger* However, here is the website for you to catch up. It seems that Mr. Elfman is at it again and there is going to be a Forbidden Zone 2. Cleve and his team made a disgusting mask for the Princess Polly Character. I'm excited to see what they do with the newest installment. Besides, Danny Elfman is doing the music and that makes me a happy zombie.

Molding of Princess Polly (image source)

Final Princess Polly (image source)

 Here is the scene we got to watch being filmed on the Monster Man episode. It was also very interesting to watch the team trouble shoot. The Princess Started out in a gold bikini, but it was far too reflective to use in front of green screen. Now the princess wears royal purple.

On a random side note, in the 1980s there was an American New Wave band called Oingo Boingo, who were responsible for songs like Dead Man's Party and Weird Science. This band was fronted by the Elfman Brothers. It's funny to me to think of Danny Elfman writing 'real' music and not movie scores (even if the song Weird Science does blur that line).

I hope everyone enjoyed my Monster Man post and thank you for reading. I have a great idea for a new nail series that I'm hoping to start this week. I went to strip my ruffian last night and The Boy looked at me and said, "you're doing your nails again?! You're addicted." I didn't have the heart to tell him that most nail bloggers spend hours swatching new colors. :-) So needless to say, I'm a little behind in my new designs. I'm hoping to do my first one today.

Have a great afternoon!